You can’t use up your creativity. The more you use, the more you have. — Maya AngelouAfter a lifetime of repressing and thwarting our creative urges, we may want to swing radically back in the other direction. So, we may suddenly find ourselves overwhelmed by the enormous changes we feel will be necessary, once we … Read more
© Artsy SFI love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. — Douglas Adams The idea of micromovements is so simple and obvious. We can see perfectly well that just giving five or ten minutes a day to our creative work will move us forward (and out of our perpetual … Read more
Procrastination is my sin. It brings me naught but sorrow. I know that I should stop it. In fact, I will–tomorrow! — Gloria Pitzer Today, we start the home stretch for this chapter of recovering our sense of strength. Having done a little more soul searching, it’s time to move forward. We begin what Julia … Read more
Grandmother Frier © Carol GerbingI cannot count the good people I know who to my mind would be even better if they bent their spirits to the study of their own hungers.— M.F.K. Fisher Concluding our ruminations today on how we use our age and other methods to stay blocked, it is time to reconsider … Read more
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind there are few. — Shunryu Suzukii Over the weekend, I invited you to imagine how things would be different if you had received all the deep nurturing your child artist needed; as well as what your creative life might look like if you … Read more
Page of Rainbows © Osho Zen Tarot Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable. — Helen Keller Right up there with telling ourselves we don’t have enough money to survive as artists, the other Big … Read more
Grandma MosesSatisfaction of one’s curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life. — Linus Pauling We move now into another opportunity to overcome some challenges and develop our creative muscles. The challenge here has to do with what Julia calls The Great Block Lie. Here it is in a nutshell: Question: Are … Read more
When God closes a door, She always opens a window, but sometimes it’s hell in the hallway.— AnonymousWe are considering the ways that setbacks and “failures” may be opportunities in disguise. To the artist, whose entire viewpoint is about finding creative, out-of-the-box pathways, you would think such detours would be second nature to us.But as … Read more
Man can learn nothing except by going from the known to the unknown. — Claude Bernard We have been spending some time in this chapter going deeper into our dark memories of the losses that our artist self has endured. From our long ago baby steps that were shamed or thwarted, to more recent attempts … Read more
Surround yourself with people who respect and wish you well. — Claudia Black To recover our inner artist, we must face the scars that block us. As if we are trees, we remember and grieve where the hopeful young sapling’s limbs of potential were damaged by the ice storms of criticism, broken by aloof (perhaps … Read more